Question & Answers with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Q:
I have recently begun meditating. Through this I have experienced God and power of spirituality. I don’t realize what is happening when I meditate. How can I continue to progress on this path? Can you be my Guru?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
I think I am doing my job. If you face any issues, have questions related to energy, yoga or meditation, you can contact me or one of the teachers at any time. It is good to follow one technique at a time. It is not good to mix techniques. When you have a deep experience, it is better to consult a trained teacher. And you can always email me.Q:
Why are there so many different philosophies?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Why not? God loves diversity. What if there was only okra to eat? But you have potatoes, tomatoes, beans, all kinds of fruits, vegetables and flowers. God seems to love diversity. He has created so many of us in different shapes, features and colors. He is definitely not a military person, an army general. A spirit that loves diversity must be diverse in itself too. That is what the rishis (Ancient saints) found in meditation. There is only one Ganesh and one Vishnu, but in so many different forms. See unity in diversity and celebrate diversity. Our rishis in the past had spoken of tolerance, acceptance, diversity and equal opportunity.Why the difference? Find the common thread in different religions. According to different places, there are different customs. Time has created differences. There was one Buddha, now we have thirty-two forms of Buddhism, one Jesus Christ and now seventy-two sects of Christianity, and one Prophet Mohamed and now five different sects of Islam. In Hinduism, the variations cannot even be counted! But everyone believes in the Vedas, the Upanishads. How many different sects? Why should they not be there? Let it be there. See unity in diversity.
Q:
Do you ever get angry? What is the solution to anger?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
This is a very important question. In the 55 years of my life, I have never said a harsh word. I could not do it. The worst I have ever said is, “You stupid.”Sometimes I want to show anger and people don’t believe me. That is my problem. Things work better with some anger. Anger is good if you are aware of it. It should last only as long as a line drawn on a water surface lasts. Some carry over anger from the previous day, previous month, or ten years ago. The mind suffers. Get out of anger, frustration, jealousy and greed. Meditation will help. Pranayama, Sudarshan Kriya and yoga are the answers.
Q:
How do we locate the queen bee within us?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Meditate, meditate, meditate, meditate, and meditate.To be continued in the next post..
Q:
Beloved Guruji, I have been practicing to give a percentage of my income to uplift the society for the last twenty years. Would you please elaborate on the idea and power of charity as a spiritual practice? Love and Gratitude!
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Ya ya, giving something back to the society is very important. You know, there is a proverb that says, “Rice is purified by a drop of ghee on it”. You know ghee, butter, a little fat. It was a practice in India, but we didn’t see any scientific basis for it.Lately, when we spoke to a scientist doctor, he said it is good to have a spoon of ghee, the clarified butter, on rice, because that prevents one from having diabetes. You know why? Rice or any food, starch or carbohydrates quickly gets digested, but it takes a little longer to digest that if it has a little bit fat. Then there is less chance of you getting diabetic or heart problems. So, a cardiologist said, “it is necessary to have a little fat in carbohydrates so that it becomes complex to digest it”. I said, “look, this was said some thousands of years ago. They said, ‘rice gets purified with a drop of ghee.’ ”.
In the same way the money gets purified by charity. When you give a portion of what you have earned for a good cause then the rest of the money that you have is pure money. Similarly, the mind becomes pure by meditation, body get pure by bathing, by a shower; mind becomes pure by prana, pranayama and meditation; Intellect becomes purer by knowledge, by wisdom. See, what we are listening make us pure. There is something that happens in you when you are listening to knowledge or read Yoga Vasistha. Right? You listen to Ashtavakra and that wow sprouts from within. Knowledge makes the intellect pure. And life becomes pure when there is dedication.
Q:
How do I overcome and move beyond the physical desires?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
It depends on what is your age. If you are a teenager or just out of teenage, then it is quite but natural. There is nothing you can do about it. Keep yourself busy. If you have too much free time, only sex will occupy the mind. Have you noticed in your exam times, or when you are too busy, or you have to take a challenge, or you are going on a sports trip, or when your mind is occupied and engaged, then sex is not a big issue, it is not so compelling. But when you are too free, that is when it takes over the seat. Now, sex is not bad, but the obsession is horrible. One type of sex is when you try to satisfy, and if you do not get satisfied, there is another type that starts happening.So many different distortions and tendencies would come up in the mind. The best thing is to do pranayama. Pranayama helps. Then, watching your food will help. If you eat too much, so much energy is there, and it needs an outlet to go somewhere. And if you are not creative, then it definitely takes the other route. So, a little bit say on the food. It is said if you cannot control your tongue, you can never control your genitals, because your tongue and genitals are connected. Sex and food are very much linked. So, your obsession can be controlled if your food is lighter and moderate in amount.
Pranayama can help you to control excessive tendencies. Music and dance will help. Some creative art, painting, writing story, and appreciating beauty will help. When you are more happy, inclination towards sex is less. But if you are miserable, restless and unhappy then inclination towards sex is much more. So, by all these things and keeping yourself busy, you can sail through the tough time. Because when you indulge in it, later on you don’t like it, and not going into sex makes you completely nuts. So, you are in a limbo sort of state. This is very difficult in teenage time; there is no way out of it other than keeping someone very very busy.And then the middle age crisis! I am analyzing all these different age groups when one has to overcome these hurdles. Still, if none of these works, just wait for the time. As you grow older, it will simply disappear. You know, time will take care of it. When you are 60, 70 or may be 80, sometime it has to drop of you. Mind, sometime, will become cool. At least then, something will wake up from within.
Q:
Please, please, please, please answer my question. Dear Sri Sri, when there is love, why suffering is also there in a relationship?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Love with wisdom is bliss. Love without knowledge or wisdom is pain. Why is there pain in love? That is what you are wondering or questioning about! It is not love which is giving you pain. If it is just purely love, that means you just care for someone, you want the best for them, and then there is no pain. But when you want something in return from them or you have demands from them, then there is pain. Small things like you love somebody and they didn’t smile at you, that is enough! You love somebody and they are interested in someone else, they flirt around or complement someone, good enough for you to burn the next 24 hours or days. Jealousy, hatred, greed, arrogance and attachment are all love’s distortions. Love by itself doesn’t bring a misery. That is why knowledge and centered-ness are so important. If you centered, you can handle all these distortions, they come for a while and they disappear.Doesn’t matter, I will handle! I can easily manage people from falling!
Q:
What is the relationship between seeker, guru and the Divine?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
The beginning, middle and end of a same line. It is the seed, the plant and the tree.Q:
Guruji, is there any particularly good direction to sit in to practice our spiritual practices, and also when you are sleeping?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Any direction is OK. Usually, you face the sun if the sun is there, east and west during sunrise and sunset respectively. When sun has already set and it’s dark, usually we face the north.But that is not so important.
Why do we face the sun in the morning or evening? This is because force of energy is from one direction. So, if you are sitting facing one side and force is from the other side that means there is no balance on the other side. Suppose, you have one light here, and no light there, then there is an imbalance between the right and the left. So, sitting accordingly balances the right and the left. You are to balance right and left for meditation. So, it is said that way. But it is secondary, not even secondary, it is tertiary. It is not that important.
Q:
I was wondering what exactly the mind is. Is it a little space in our brain or is it universal? And yes, I want to tell you that you rock.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Mind is energy which is all over the body. See, every cell in your body is emitting some energy and the totality of all that energy around you is what you call the mind. Mind is not present at some point in the brain, but mind is all over the body. There is so much deep knowledge about consciousness; we should sometime go much deeper into it. We will understand more. The more you understand, the more wonder-struck you are. Wow!You know, people have phantom hand, that means they really don’t have a hand, but they feel they have a hand and they feel sensations like itching or paining in that hand. People who have lost their hand or leg in a war or accident, later sometimes, they feel they have a phantom hand or a leg. Though, they don’t have it physically. That explains or gives a clue that the mind is not just in one spot, it is all around the body. The aura of body is mind. We think that mind is inside the body, it is the other way around - Body is inside the mind. Body is like the wick of the candle and mind is like the glow all around.